Jared Kushner memoir chronicles frustrations of negotiating trade deal with Canada

Members of the Trump administration would rant at their Canadian counterparts during the renegotiation of NAFTA about the frequency of leaks that appeared in the press.

The Americans insisted those trade talks be allowed to unfold discreetly at the negotiating table. They avoided news conferences, rarely spoke to reporters and let Donald Trump's occasional ill-tempered tweets speak for the U.S.

A new memoir lays out the U.S. perspective on those closed-door talks.

The book by presidential son-in-law and senior staffer Jared Kushner earned the literary equivalent of a ritualized execution in a vividly unflattering New York Times book review that mocked its wooden writing and wilful blindness to the seedier aspects of the Trump legacy.

The book does fill in some gaps on a significant historical event for Canada: it describes the false starts in the trade talks, frustrations with the Canadians and how the deal wound up with two tongue-twisting acronyms for a name. 

Breaking History, Kushner's book, describes a method to Trump's madness, crediting the president's sporadic threats to cancel NAFTA with creating valuable pressure on Canada and Mexico.

It also acknowledges the madness in the method.

An angry tweet from Trump stalled talks before they even began. In early 2017, the North American countries planned an amicable announcement of new trade negotiations at a three-country event at the White House.

When Kushner called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's chief of staff to confirm plans, Katie Telford asked whether it was still on: "Didn't you see his tweets this morning?"

In fact, Kushner had not seen his father-in-law's public threat to cancel meetings with the Mexican leader unless Mexico paid for a new border wall; the meeting was cancelled.

Later in the day, he said Trump realized that might have been a mistake and half-jokingly told Kushner: "I can't make this too easy for you."

Months later, there was another bumpy launch. Trump asked staff to draw up documents to terminate the original NAFTA.

Trump was actually undecided about whether to go through with it when someone — Kushner suspects it was White House trade skeptic Peter Navarro — leaked the news to the Politico website, hoping to pressure the president to do it. 

Aspects of what happened next are already public knowledge: Trudeau and his Mexican counterpart, Enrique Peña Nieto, called Trump, pleading with him not to, warning it would cause chaos, and after a frantic few hours, everyone agreed to launch renegotiation talks.